Read Online Set Me Free by Daniela Sacerdoti - Free Book Online Page A

them on her bedside table. Without them she looked younger, with her thin face and big blue eyes. She looked just like her birth mother in the picture I’d seen, with bones like a bird’s and wavy, dark-blond hair.
    â€œI promise. Goodnight, Mum.”
    â€œGoodnight, sweetheart.”
    I turned around to glance at her one last time. By the sliver of light that came from the corridor I could see her hair fanned on the pillow, her small body curled under the blankets like a blossom waiting to unfurl. I hoped she would sleep through, the same hope I had every night, though I knew it was unlikely. I was so relieved she had agreed to go to Glen Avich; we would all get away from this house where there had been so much conflict, so much heartache, at least for a while. Once again I thanked in my heart whatever or whoever it was that had brought her to me – God, or the universe, or fate. If karma existed, I thought I must have done something very, very good in my previous life to deserve my children.
    Before going to bed I went to check on Leo. Every time I went to see him through the night I found him tangled with the duvet and never actually under it. His little, dense body was relaxed like a sleeping puppy, and his hair smelled of puppy too, I often thought, especially when he slept: warm, tender, not quite fully human yet. A man cub. My man cub.
    â€œNight, baby,” I whispered in his ear and leaned over to kiss him. I tucked him in; I knew he was going to wriggle out of the blankets once more, but I did it anyway. He turned over and slipped his thumb into his mouth. I knew he was too old for it, but hey, who was there to see? And with all the upheaval we had ahead of us, he needed all the reassurance he could get.

5

Dawn
    Margherita
    The next day, with Lara in school and Leo in nursery, I sat at the kitchen table, ready to make two phone calls. The first one was the hardest.
    â€œOh, Margherita.” Ash said my name like a sigh. Like a chore.
    Was this really my husband? Was this really the man I’d loved so much? This man who sounded like he felt nothing for me any more?
    Nobody, nobody in the world had the ability to make me feel as cold as he did.
    â€œI just wanted to let you know I’m taking the children on holiday,” I said. “We’ll go to my mum’s for the summer.”
    A pause. “To Scotland?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAre you sure it’s a good idea to uproot Lara for so long? With her state of mind . . .”
    â€œIt’s hardly uprooting. It’s just for the six weeks.”
    â€œLook, nobody wants you to go so far away.” Oh, how he loved patronising me.
    â€œMaybe I want my family around me, Ash. Have you thought of that?”
    â€œYour sister is here, and you spend a lot of time with her, certainly more than you do with me.”
    â€œNow you’re jealous of my sister? You’re never around, Ash. Who else should I spend time with?” It was starting again, and I hated myself for letting him get to me. “I just want to see Mum, Ash, that’s all.”
    â€œAt the expense of your daughter?”
    â€œI’m taking her on holiday to Scotland, not to a labour camp! And I notice you didn’t even mention Leo.”
    â€œThis again.” A deep sigh. “Leo is always at the top of my priorities.”
    â€œYou hide it well,” I said, recalling all the times he’d let Leo down, all the times he’d shown his indifference, openly and unashamedly: like when he missed his first Nativity play in nursery; like when he left him at a party for an extra hour because he had something urgent to do. Once, Leo had drawn our family: there was me, him and Lara as stick people under a tree dotted with apples, and far away, in a corner, was Daddy. Leo was extending a spindly arm to him, but Daddy’s arms were at his sides. I left the drawing on the kitchen table, hoping that he’d see it and